Rachel Polonsky's Poe's Aesthetic Theory

Rachel Polonsky's essay on Poe's Aesthetic Theory to The Tell-Tale Heart appears in the book "Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe". It is a compilation of fourteen essays written by leading international scholars. Polonsky is one of the fourteen contributors that delve on the life and works of the famous American author.

Rachel Polonsky works as a Research and Teaching Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1994-2000). She wrote the English Literature and the Russian Aesthetic Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 1998). Her works of essays and reviews about the early Russian and English literature and cultural history are published in the Journal of European Studies, Slavonic and East European Review and TLS.

Rachel Polonsky's critical essay is found in Chapter Three of the 'Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe'. In this essay, she takes on the life of Poe and his writings. She tries to connect Poe's works with European aesthetic philosophy. According to Polonsky:

Kant refined and systematized ideas about art that had been germinating since the beginning of the eighteenth century, and defined “aesthetic judgment, ” the faculty of taste, as peculiar and specific, disinterested, universal, and distinct from the pleasures of the senses or practical morality. The work of art, in Kantian theory, pleases for its own sake.

Rachel Polonsky's essay on “Poe's Aesthetic Theory” is very insightful. According to Polonsky, “the word “aesthetic” does not occur in Poe's literary, critical, or theoretical writings.” But Poe achieves aesthetic sense in his works through the application of his "Philosophy of Composition".

In the “The Philosophy of Composition” Poe delineates the criteria for which a work of fiction becomes a work of art. According to Poe, the author must decide the effect he desires. Then he must find the best way to achieve the desired effect. This can be done by taking into consideration the composition of the work which includes the plot, theme, setting, characters, conflict or "peculiarity both of incident and tone . . . looking . . . for such combinations of event, or tone, as shall best aid . . . in the construction of the effect" ("Philosophy of Composition").

Polonsky believes that the confidence-trick generated by "Philosophy of Composition" is the key to Poe's "aesthetic theory". Poe applied this "aesthetic theory" to a number of his works. In connection with "aesthetic theory", the unity of effect he espoused is evident in the "Tell-tale Heart" by the way he instills fear to the reader. Fear was often the effect Poe aims to attain in a number of his short stories. In order to achieve the desired end, Poe carefully chose every word and every imageto create an effect of fear through paranoia within the mind of the reader.

The Tell-Tale Heart is so well-constructed that it finds a place among the most well-written horror stories of all times. The Tell-tale Heart's ironic and gothic theme provides the effect central to the story. In the Tell-tale Heart evokes the narrator keeps insisting that he is sane. : "You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded . . ." (Poe 121). The reader though has a gnawing feeling that the opposite is true. The irony heightens the feeling of hysteria in the story. The Tell-tale Heart is a masterpiece heightened by its aesthetic value.